The World According to Angela
by Nyah
Summary: Sometimes Angela thinks their loves could use a better narrator. B/B. Collected Ange-caps from episodes 101-104.
1. Home Again, Home Again

**Disclaimer:** The parts and the sum and the whole of the thing belong to Fox and Mr. Hanson.

**Note:** So once upon a time I let Angela narrate a little episode called "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole." Since then, there have been requests to let Ange have at it with subsequent episodes. I've been publishing each as separate one-shots but for the sake of organization, here they are collected. Apologies to anyone who came here looking for a new cap. But never fear, I hope to have something up for "The Boy With the Answer" in the very near future.

**Home Again, Home Again**

So I'm a narrator, right? Right. Well there are different kinds of narrators and there are words for these things but my secret degree is totally not in literature. So, for our purposes, let's say that the greatest difference amongst narrators is how nosey we are.

Me? Pretty darn nosey. Which means I add the parts however I want, take a look at the sum, and relate the whole thing to you the way I see it. There's something kind of dishonest in that, I guess. And maybe that's why storytellers are usually pretty accomplished liars. Lots of practice.

Yeah, it's okay, I've accepted it. And it looks like you have too since you're here and not off spending your time on a project in Excel, or on doing laundry, or on a nice story conveyed politely in the third-person. Now I've rambled on about me when what I really wanted to do was just get to the meat of what I am: a piece of the architecture of the story.

And like I said, I'm nosey. I get my hands dirty and I alter the lens and I connect the dots. I'm a piece of architecture that is almost a character.

And I'm not the only one.

This week I'd like you to meet my pal, setting. His proper name for this particular story is "Burtonsville." But I like to call him Muggins for short. See, we've just been introduced, Muggins and me, and nicknames create an instant bond and all.

Muggins is like me. Nosey. But where I have a delicate (dare I say _artistic) _touch, Muggins is kind of a spaz. He blunders into the story awkwardly. Watch:

We first meet Muggins as two high school girls are wondering into one of Muggins's forest-bound, tumble-down barns (I say 'one of' because you get the feeling that Muggins probably has a lot of these. Like, the area's probably made up entirely of a high school and old, creepy hay lofts).

Anyway, the girls are looking for a place to explore the confusing world of teenaged sexuality (they've only been here with boys before) but instead of just saying that, they blame a Katy Perry song.

Yeah.

Go ahead. Roll your eyes. I know I'm dwelling on the irrelevant pre-credit scene but it's just too funny. The girls are all, "no touching, only the stuff in the song." Um, ladies? Does the song also mention the necessity of drafty barns and rotting hay? No? How about maggot covered skulls?

I think you need to listen to that song a little more closely.

So the girls scream and are totally grossed out. But what did they expect? I mean they live in Burtonsville. And old Muggins is pretty one-note. He's a horror setting. And it's not like he's very subtle about it.

The best thing about this story is the Ballad of Booth and Muggins (yeah, I also love the ballad of Booth and Brennan but I always love that so it's hardly worth mentioning at this point). Poor Booth. He hasn't met a lot of settings so active as Muggins. Muggins is the kind of setting that invades. He shapes people while they're in his clutches and makes them remember their shapes when they return.

The only place Booth's met like that is Kosovo and that was a whole other kind of horror setting. It's the kind a lot of people never leave.

So Booth is totally weirded out and a little frightened when he sees what Muggins does to people. There's the town sheriff who is hilariously aggressive about hitting on him. She was Brennan's lab partner. Brennan's not especially tactful about remember her as being overweight and Sheriff Rebecca rudely recalls Brennan as the creepy girl.

So we look at the icky, sloppy remains and Brennan calls the sheriff Becky and the sheriff calls her Morticia and it's like, say hello to Muggins! He's just doing his thing. Which has less to do with sloppy body parts than with shaping everyone into who they used to be.

And Booth's all awkwarded out by Muggins so he tells Brennan to be a rebel and go to her reunion and smear everyone's face in her accomplishments. He wants her to be proud and confident and enviable. And there she has a shot because she is those things. But mostly he wants to to be cool. And, face it, that's always been a lost cause.

So we hear about an old axe-murderer legend. The kind of thing which usually amounts to "don't go into the woods alone." But Burtonsville is totally wacky, even in its morality tales so the lesson is … don't go to school or you might get eaten? Guess that explains why Brennan was creepy. She wanted to learn.

I'd gloss over Sweets and Booth going over the case details via weblink except A) Booth takes off his jacket and hello! FBI t-shirt. Seriously, a person shouldn't look that good fully dressed. He contemplates another shirt and we're all really tantalized, torn between wanting him always to wear that FBI t-shirt (which, when did the FBI start tailoring its t-shirts to cling to a guy's torso? Not that I'm complaining) and wanting him to immediately take it off in order to change into the other one.

Oh. Right. There _is _a B. Which is B) Sweets gets all suggestive about Booth and Brennan sharing a motel like sudden proximity might make them forget all the reasons they've been solving murders for five years instead of making mad passionate love. Sorry, Sweets. If this was a motel story, maybe, but Muggins isn't that kind of setting. Remember those teenaged girls? Trysts in Muggins tend to end up with someone dead. So, for once, I'm gonna pitch my tent in the Platonic Crime Fighting Partners camp.

Fewer maggot covered skulls there.

But Sweets and Muggins haven't been properly introduced. Which Booth understands. To get Muggins you kind of have to be there. So he takes Sweets on a little tour of the room to prove that there won't be any adjoining going on.

Later, Booth and Brennan meet some _Popular kids _(italics totally necessary. They're a species). Booth recognizes them for what they are because he was one once and Brennan recognizes them for who they were. And when you put people back _where_ they used to be they're gonna be _who _they used to be.

Everyone chats and Brennan's as abrasive as always. The blond girl kind of freaks out a little about Brennan liking dead things while the guy just pays her a compliment. And that's how we know the chick is the lesser of the two here. In high school it's tough to distinguish the mean people from the cool people. Later you realize the mean people were always the untouchable ones due to their own insecurity while the truly cool people were the ones who could charmingly appeal to the things you liked best about yourself. They were untouchable because everyone wanted to be near them and feel charming and cool by association.

Anyway. Brennan tries to toot her own horn and utterly fails. So Booth swoops in to save her by pretending to be her husband. And it's like one part sweet to one part offensive. Like, he's trying to help her out but he thinks he can only do it by claiming association and letting his coolness rub off on her. Yeah. I'd be more upset about it except he introduces himself as "Bobby Kent" and I'm too distracted by wondering if he has a brother named Clark.

So Booth and Brennan go off to find the janitor and I have a chat with Wendall. Which I'm not ready to talk about yet so we're gonna skip that. K? Thanks.

The janitor, Mr. Buxley, and Muggins are like best friends. Mr. Buxley totally gets that if you live there in Burtonsville, you just have to go with it. Just be absurd, just lurk in dark corners, just collect saw blades. Just revel in it.

When we make it to the gym everyone's starting to get into the groove. Everyone's got a blade. Everyone's got a motive. No one has a verbal filter. Seriously. The things these people say. We always thought Brennan was a little off but it turns out she's just a product of her setting. Good ole Muggins.

So we have this room full of people bent on hitting on either Booth or Brennan in the most awkward ways possible. And we have Mr. Buxley who is so fantastically creepy that we'd never believe he'd hurt a fly.

And everyone's just spinning around this reunion. The past here is like a black hole or maybe a centrifuge. All the changes these kids have made since the days of high school float to the top and are filtered away. The dance floor turns, the blades flash, and suddenly they're all back here again and suddenly they're all who they used to be. Except Booth. So he's freaked.

Everyone is afraid and insecure and suspicious. Everyone has a motive. Everyone is the worst dancer you have ever seen.

Then Seal starts to play. And yeah. I don't care who you are, "Kiss from a Rose" is just one of those songs. We know it. Booth and Brennan know it.

So she wants to dance and he wants punch.

This is her town and the prom she never had. She's back. She's the high school girl who wants one silly, perfect prom night to remember. 'Awkward and lonely' is still something she can escape, still something she thinks she can leave behind. The patterns don't seem permanent yet. And she's not wrong. Even now, she's not wrong. But settings cling to your feet like mud, they give you away with dirty footprints.

But he's not from here. He hasn't gone back. And in the here an now, when the patterns seem set in stone, being close too her means to much to him. It aches.

He says they've opened a door that neither of them wants to walk through. She's not ready to come in. He hasn't really resigned himself to walking out.

So he doesn't want to dance.

But he'll do it anyway. For that girl she used to be. And for the woman she is now even if she'd rather not see it.

It's awkward for a while. Lots of room for the Holy Spirit, for the differences between them. But then the blade flashes and the stars fall into place. (Yeah. Muggins is heavy handed.)

And Brennan is tearing up. Not a lot of things can get to this woman. _He_ is one of them. Another is who she used to be.

She was always the creepy girl who liked dead things. The girl who's parents left, who's world was a lie. This is the prom she never got to go to. He is the guy she was never supposed to have.

So he holds her close. He's a guy who's been to war. He knows how a place clings to you. He knows all about being formed from the clay of where you're from. He knows what it means to be born from a horror story.

So he holds her and she holds him and the music plays and we hope one day the past can die. We hope we can all go somewhere else. We hope we can be the people we were never supposed to be.

But now is the past and now is the present so there's a murder and they're the Platonic Crime Solving Partners still. The most exciting thing going on now is the roving pie-delivery girl. I mean, I hope my reunion has one of those.

Soon we find out that the stars are the murder weapon and mean blond girl is the the killer. That's Muggins for you with the heavy handed poetic justice. You take a girl who always thought the stars should align for her and when they don't, she uses them to kill someone. Thanks for that, Muggins. Thanks for making people totally nuts.

Back in DC and out at the bar everyone's bashing on high school. And that's when we remember that they're _all _grown up freaks and geeks. High school, for them (us, I'm in there too) was a slasher film.

So we end, as is fitting, with a twisted moral out of Burtonsville. Most people say, "You can't go home again." You've changed or it's changed. Whatever.

The truth is, home is always with you. My pal setting is not just where you were once, it's what you're made of. So you can. You can go home again. The real question is whether or not you can ever leave.


	2. The Other Fish

**Disclaimer: **The parts and the sum and the whole of the thing belong to Hart Hanson and Fox, etc.

**Warning:** Spoilers through episode 102, "The Predator in the Pool."

**Summary:** Ange watches them swim around each other. Like fish in a bowl.

Genre: Humor

**Characters:** Booth/Brennan, ensemble cameos, Angela at the wheel.

**Note:** A very short look at ep. 102 as narrated by Angela a la "Someone Call for a Narrator?" but less with the angst. I had plans to take a break from this fandom to make good on some fic promises elsewhere but B&B dating around is just tough on all of us and this little fic didn't take TOO much of my time away. Enjoy.

**The Other Fish**

Call me Angela**  
**

I really considered letting Clark take this one. But he already bent his cardinal once tonight so your stuck with me.

Once upon a time there was a clownfish with a tiny fin whose mother died as Disney mothers are wont to do … nope just kidding. That one belongs to Pixar and I don't work for them. And me? Not up for getting sued. (Though after all the virtual fish tank stuff I just pulled, well, keep me in mind for Finding Nemo 2. I wonder how an Oscar for visual effects ranks against a doctorate. Just saying.)

The fish we have featured in our story is Bob. Bob's a lionfish. He's all stripy and spiny. We're really freaking scared of Bob. No. Really. I mean, it was cute, wasn't it, that we named the murder weapon? It almost, _almost _was enough to distract from the kind of harsh implications of this little blurb out of our lives.

Okay, so I know I was not the only one who rolled her eyes spectacularly when Booth decides to move on while surrounded by tropical fish. I mean, thank God that marine biologist was reminiscent to the point distracting of the boss-lady from HOUSE. Otherwise, every time she came on screen and Booth (oh, _Booth_) went all googly, the scene would have reeked with aphorism worse that Hodgins's sunfish smoothie. Really, Booth should have just gone ahead and worn that motivational tie he must own that says, "there are other fish in the sea."

Because there are, Booth. You're right. There are other fish in the sea. Fake it till you make it, darling.

Let's see how well that works out for you.

The first thing fish did for Booth in this episode was scare the puckie out of him. He was all heart-in throat, _why don't you just let Hodgins do it_, the whole time Brennan was in that tank. And that was just silly. Everyone knows that if a shark comes at you, you punch it in the nose. And who do we know who is an expert nose-puncher?

Yeah. Ain't Hodgins.

So the fish in the sea? They scare Booth. That's fine. He's been away from the sea, hasn't gotten his feet (or anything else, wink-wink) wet in a while. Plus (to help a brother out) the fish are really scary. They are. Check out what else they did:

Ate motivational speaker

Swallowed motivational speaker's skull.

Spat skull forth.

And let's not forget, were used to inject toxin via eyeball wound

And why did they do all this?

Because Motivational Speaker was a big faker. He went out into the sea, faced his fears, and it cured him? Nah. It was stem cells. Cells ripe with unlimited potential made to slowly assimilate to a body and heal the damage within.

Okay, so. We're doing something funny with themes and lessons here (oh, something new and different for us!). We're not actually turning the 'face your fears' wisdom on its head. Not completely anyway. But, there was a lesson to be had from the motivational speaker and the fibromyalgia avenger: facing fears for the sake of facing fears is meaningless. Why pretend you need to face down a lionfish and bathe in Brazil? Why pretend at revelation and salvation?Why pretend the answer is out there with the fish in the sea? Will we think any less of you if the answer is life-long treatment? If you have to constantly seek and strive and heal to make yourself better?

Re-enter analogous fish: Hacker and Marine-lady. Funny as clownfish, flashy as Angels. But how might those two feel about being the "other fish in the sea." What happens when they realize they're their both place holders for someone else?

Because Hacker and Marine? They're being deceived. Because someone told these people they're dating that the answer is out there in the sea, that there are open waters teeming with other fish, waters that heal. So now that's what they are. Other fish. So no matter how funny or smart or tall they happen to be they'll always be set up against the standard and found to be distinctly other. They'll wonder why they can't magically cure the hurts brought to them.

And that's kind of sad isn't it? If they weren't unwittingly, you know, ruining everything, I might even kind of like both of them. They're practically bizarro Booth and Brennan already. I mean, put them in a room together without distractions and I bet we throw together a June wedding.

I digress.

All I'm saying is, Booth and Brennan could really use some Clark Edison style advice. Because dating someone just to convince yourself that you can is, well, almost rude to those other people. It makes fish of them. And in the fish bowl it's eat or be eaten.


	3. Dry Clean Only

**Fandom:** Bones  
**Disclaimer:** The parts and the sum and the whole of the thing belong to Fox and Mr. Hanson.  
**Summary:** The latest in my series of Ange-caps. Ange sorts through the flotsam of "The Rocker in the Rinse Cycle."  
**Characters:** Booth/Brennan, Angela at the Wheel  
**Spoilers/Warnings:** Through ep. 103 "The Rocker in the Rinse Cycle."  
**Rating:** PG

**Note:** I'm going to be honest and say I did not love this episode so it was a tough one. Even with Angela's help. So ... read at your own risk.

**Dry Clean Only**

Today we're going to try something different and start in the middle of things, wake up in the rinse cycle. I'd start with the dead man and the whodunit but, as it turns out, the guy was a douche. Which seems to make everyone kind of okay with the fact that he was murdered and shoved down the laundry chute. So I guess we can just skip the whole murder thing. I mean, I guess it's not in our job description to care about the dead guy, as long as we figure out who killed him. Remind me why I work here?

So we'll skip over Brennan noticing Booth's tie and Cam making some lame jokes like she's been watching too much CSI instead of getting her freak on. Which. She probably has. Skip some talk about gynecologists (and you can so tell Booth did not grow up with sisters. Like, get over it Booth, lady parts need health care too. As do testicles. Particularly when they become cancerous or get otherwise hacked off by industrial laundry devices.)

Skip some talk of Catherine and social contracts that I guess it has to do with anthropology. That or Catherine's a Marxist. Still definitely beats cult leader. Skip Cam meeting a nice lady-doctor who is also a nice-looking man. And Hodgins and the Arastoo pushing the baseball metaphors way beyond the tolerance of mortal man. Skip it. Knock it right outta the park.

And yadda, yadda ….

Welcome to rock 'n' roll fantasy camp! First, take a moment to accept that fantasy camps exist and are intended for adults. Now take a another moment to accept that these things cost thousands of dollars to attend.

Try to smooth that sneer out of your lip.

Good. Now we're ready. I think. I dunno, I might need another minute.

So we've established that we're not too concerned about the actual murder. I mean, a man's dead and camp's just going to go on as usual. In fact, everyone seems very annoyed that the FBI would dare interrupt the proceedings of something so sacred as rock camp for one little murder.

So what else is going on here?

Look how much fun Booth's having pretending to be someone else. Tie on his head, air guitar wailing, drumsticks tucked into gun holster. A man's been through an industrial air fluffer and retrieved (minus a testicle) as globs of goo. And still, Booth with a tie on his head, torturing Foreigner, is still the image that'll probably stick with you.

Not judging. Just saying.

It really makes an impression, that sheer joy on his face. Can you blame him? I mean he's been this same guy for a while now. The same tiny apartment. The same little rebellions. The same poor schmuck pining over his beautiful scientist partner.

But now he's got a new tie. So it's on his head and he's grinning like his life depends on it.

And Brennan? Brennan has the mentions. Sort of. Mentions: the affliction characterized by the bringing up of irrelevant persons in conversations due to some obscure connection to said conversation. Usually a crush is involved.

Usually the mentions (read: MENtions) strike like this:

Me: "Wow, I really need a haircut."  
Cam: "You know who has a great hair cut? Michelle's gynecologist."  
Me: ….  
Cam: It just … (decisive nod) suits him.  
Me: Oh. Right. Him.

Yep. I fully expect to have that conversation with the lovely Dr. Saroyan in the near future.

But Brennan, my dear best friend, doesn't really crush (except maybe on, like, super ancient human remains. Then she's a complete fan girl) . Usually she just kind of bluntly propositions people with words like "compatible" and "prominent brow ridge" or "pronounced mandible."

Yeah. I know. Girl's lucky she's hot.

So that's what's happening but what's going on? Booth, who's always the first to suspect jealousy doesn't catch a whiff of it on Brennan. Here's a hint, Booth: it smells fishy.

Yeah, bad joke. But he deserves it for deliberately being dumb.

And Brennan? She's trying to write off this vexation she clearly feels over Catherine as standard curiosity in Booth's life. No bad joke for her. Social incompetence is the norm here.

And Sweets is all, "Bravo. You're both moving on." Like he hasn't been matchmaking like a jewish mother for years now. Like, if they really fall apart, he won't believe a little less in love when the truth is, if they fall apart love will believe a little less in itself.

So. Really. What's going on here?

Let's go ahead and fast forward to the end. Murder no one cared about solved, g-man and scientist lying to each other over beers. ("You're a very good singer." "Sure. Yeah.")

Booth says, "You'd die for your partner, that's the way I look at it." And now we're getting somewhere.

Because you do. You die for your partner. You take bullets. You tell lies. You get drinks after hours and talk about dating people who aren't each other. Little deaths, every day.

But you don't live for your partner.

And that's the draw, for Booth, for us, of rock'n'roll. It's something to dedicate yourself to and build a life around. It can take everything out of you and tear you apart. It's the only thing left when everything else has gone. You can live for it. Even if you shouldn't. And kill for it. Even if it's wrong.

You'll give anything for it. You'll do things you never thought you would. You'll commit your life, you'll walk joyfully into handcuffs.

It's like love that way.

So that's what's going on here. Love, life, and death. All quietly at war. For the rest of us, this is the waiting game. We're waiting for them to figure it out. How they fit together.

But they don't regard one another with the same sense of inevitability. They can't. They've decided to move on, salvage what they can from the fire, from the rinse cycle. He's spent too much time living for her already. He's spent too much time thinking of no one else. And now she's with Hacker. It's like watching some rich phony clumsily strum a Les Paul, get his fingerprints all over it. He has to look away. Really away. Or it's gonna get ugly.

So we're waiting. But they're not. They're moving, treading water in the spin cycle.

She wants him and she wants the buffers that keep her from him. For now that's Hacker, and her work, and their partnership. He wants her and he wants love. She's told him those are mutually exclusive so he's trying the other on for a while, like a tie around the forehead, like a weekend at fantasy camp.

But the reality is, they don't need a tie because they have a certain belt buckle. They don't need a mix tape because they have a rock'n'roll song. And they don't need to keep dying for each other, to keep killing one another if only they can figure out how to live.


	4. Circumscribed

**Fandom: **Bones

**Disclaimer:** The parts and the sum and the whole of the thing belong to Fox and Mr. Hanson.

**Summary: **The latest in my series of Ange-caps. Ange lets someone else narrate "The Witch in the Wardrobe." She hopes you'll be kind to him.

**Characters:** Booth/Brennan, Angela/Hodgins

**Spoilers/Warnings:** Through ep. 104 "The Witch in the Wardrobe."

**Rating: **PG

**Note: **It occurs to me that it might make sense for me to format all these little Ange-caps as a multi-chapter "story" instead of new stories each time so anyone reading can get to them in order. Any thoughts?

**Circumscribed**

Today's story is about magic and memories. It's about understanding who we were without forgetting who we've become as a result. It's about crushed hearts and shriveled shoes and the things you find in rye flour.

It's also about me. And that's why I'm not going to tell it.

Narrators don't exactly have a reputation for being the most reliable people ever. It's not like I'd go all _Fight Club _on you or pull a Verbal Kent but I don't quite trust myself to tell this one straight. Plus, I deserve a honeymoon. So I'm calling in a pinch hitter. (See, I can do baseball metaphors too.)

And he's a little nervous guys. (He says he's not, which is cute, but _please_.) So be kind ….

Yeah. Okay. Special Agent Seeley Booth, here. I'll be your narrator today so please everyone just keep your arms and legs inside the cart. I've been expressly forbidden to return any of you ... damaged. I'm going to start at the beginning because I'm new at this whole god-like narrator gig so we'll hold off on the bag of tricks for a little while. Plus, the beginning's a perfectly good place to start. Maybe Quentin Tarantino doesn't think so but plenty of people start with beginnings. Like God, for instance. You know, "In the Beginning there was …." Right?

The the first thing was we had to make the drive up to Carroll County, Maryland to examine the crime scene. Now I don't know if anyone's familiar with the area but if there's a good way to navigate the place that doesn't involved one narrow, windy back road or another we didn't know it and neither did Bones's GPS. So we spent a good amount of time navigating roads dark in the middle of the day because the trees on either side grew so thick they grew together like a roofs. Parker calls them tree tunnels. I call them kind of creepy.

Bones and I spent a good portion of the ride talking vitamins. See, I started taking a daily supplement. I figure, if I'm going to have a job with an increased chance of getting shot or kidnapped or whatever, the least I can do to stay healthy for my kid is not be vitamin deficient.

Bones didn't agree. Big surprise. "You should eat a variety of foods to ensure adequate vitamin intake naturally," she said. "Besides, supplementing the water-soluble C and B-complex vitamins is useless. It just makes you produce costly urine."

I laughed. I was driving around with the best forensic anthropologist in the world and we were talking about pee. It wasn't exactly surprising but it was funny. "Catherine said the same same thing. Except she put it, 'You might as well just pour those straight into the toilet.'"

"What a vivid response," Bones said, not laughing. Oops.

Okay. Sorry. I'm getting a really powerful evil eye from Angela over there so I guess I should try to stay on topic rather than the, um, opposite. But I should tell you (courtesy of Bones) that if eating polar bear liver is on your list of things to do before you die, better make it the last one. Something about Vitamin Some-letter in toxic amounts.

Moving on.

We went from vitamins to talking about whether or not people can be good on their own. Which, looking back, is kind of an intense switch. Bones doesn't think they can be good on their own. I think they can. Some can, anyway.

Some can't.

In this job, I've met both kinds.

This job is all about extremes. I guess you probably figured that out if you've been paying attention. But maybe not. I'll admit I didn't really expect it when I signed on. I figured on the way you have coax and charm information out of a grieving mother and then flip a few hours later to being hard and merciless enough to scare a confession out of a killer. That's part of the draw of the job. Not the grieving parent part, of course, but knowing how to handle anyone in any situation. There's skill there, deftness and finesse and all that.

But hey, is a guy really supposed to expect glowing bones and skeletons in space ships and JFK? I think it's safe to say those kinds of things qualify as extremes. And you never really get used to that.

So it's me and Bones picking through the burnt out foundation of a witch's house. Well, she's picking, I'm stepping carefully and trying not to touch anything that could possibly be useful to any of the squints. During a case pretty much anything in a mile radius of the homicide falls into her territory. (Except the people, that's where I come in.) Plus, Cam sent Hodgins and Angela along with us and Hodgins is even worse than Bones about little specs of stuff. He gets as excited about threads and crumbs and most guys do about strip clubs or the Super Bowl. He almost got himself blown up over a piece of bumper sticker.

Yeah, like I said, extremes.

Bones is checking out the skeleton of a woman in a wedding dress whose hanging in a wardrobe. How's that for a tongue twister, huh?

"Oh!" she says. And I already know it's not good. She's not the kind of person you want to surprise. It tends to end in broken bones or crushed organs. Turns out someone strung the skeleton back together. But the thing that gets to Bones is that they did it _badly_.

Angela calls us over to point out the path Hodgins noticed. That one we all had to carefully step over to get into the house. Also, Angela noticed that it's a circle.

To be honest, I'm not sure why Cam sent Hodgins and Angela up here. We've shipped whole lakes to the Jeffersonian for Hodgins to analyze so what's a burnt up house? And Ange? I really respect Angela, I do. She does things with computers I didn't think were possible. Some of the things she does make me wonder why I don't have a flying car or an anti-gravity machine. But here? Now? I mean my kid knows what circles are.

Sorry Angela, but you might as well wait in the Prius. No offense. Sometimes I feel that way around the squints too.

Anyway, there's a second body. It has red shoes and shrinking ankles and is definitely kind of fresh so it all goes back to the Jeffersonian.

In the lab, Clark gives Bones the run down on what he and Hodgins have figured out so far. And I always kind of wonder what Bones is doing while her interns are arranging the bodies and having chats with Hodgins. They always seem to know all kind of stuff before she's even had a chance to put her gloves on.

The squints do their science thing and come to the conclusion that the old lady in the dress was a witch. I guess the creepy old house and red shoes didn't tip them off.

A couple hours later we find out that maybe sending Angela to the Prius wasn't such a good idea. Though, it's Hodgins driving the Prius like a jackass that gets them into trouble. Granted, the guy was busy turning on the charm which he's not bad at for someone who can go weird and angry when you least expect it.

So sheriff Gus pulls them over (either for swerving or for driving like five miles per hour) and he doesn't even give them a break for driving a Prius, a car that's a responsible environmental choice. Come one, it's a Prius, man. Smart and not as ugly as it could be. A Prius!

I'm getting another look from Angela. Probably for saying "Prius" too much. But I'm just trying to help her out. Fill whatever quota needs filling so she won't feel compelled to advertise anything any time soon. Maybe I don't pull it off as well as she does. Oh well. I tried.

The sheriff is unimpressed by the Prius, Hodgins's 'tude, and Angela's flirting. He doesn't even care that they're here as part of a murder investigation. So it's into the holding cell they go.

And that's why I'm always the driver.

Bones and I (markedly not incarcerated) talk to Sweets about witches, I get some face time with the younger witch's brother, and Clark melts some plastic in search of the perfect acid.

Yep, like goes on as usual for the rest of us. Which brings me to my theme. Sort of. Angela says this is how this whole things works. I'm here to kind of poke at everything until its had enough and gives up its secrets. Or something like that.

What I remember about English class is that a lot's left up to the guy reading the story. And the thing that's jumping out at me is this whole witch angle. We've got the young one with the red shoes and the old witch in the wardrobe. I know both those stories. The lion's missing from the second one but I'm pretty sure the lion in that story was Jesus and since we're talking spells and murder, I'm okay with leaving Jesus out.

The thing with both stories is they're about what happens when you fall out of sync with the rest of the world. When you get stuck in Oz or inside a wardrobe or in back of nowhere Maryland. And that's exactly where Hodgins and Angela are, pacing the cell waiting on a judge and warrants.

The rest of the world goes on outside. The rest of us deal with the extremes while they sit this one out. I meet a guy convinced a curse made him lose his hair. And that's totally weird but he's probably one of the most convincing and likable guys I've ever met. So definitely not a killer.

Clark and Bones find a bunch of stab marks and Bones finally comes to the conclusion that it shouldn't have taken Hodgins and Angela a whole extra day to get back to DC. Even if the Prius somehow doesn't have solar powered, zero-point energy GPS.

Angela calls from jail and says she's in Barryville, Maryland. Which, incidentally, doesn't exist in Carroll or any other county so she really shouldn't be surprised that no one's come to get her. So they spend a lot of time waiting around and it's kind of like the first therapy sessions Bones and I had with Sweets. It's takes them a while to get bored enough to crack.

What does it is the ache in Angela's shoulders which Hodgins is happy to take care of. Can't really blame him there. Giving a beautiful woman you've been in love with for years a rub down is worth a little jail time. And Angela's really enthusiastic about it. Like, I don't know about all of you, but that was more of their sex life than I ever really needed to see.

Cam takes it pretty well when she shows up. I guess she's playing Glinda the Good Witch. Which means she tells them they just have to stay on the Yellow Brick Road, wait out the judge. I'm trying to be nice to Camille here with the whole Glinda thing but let's be honest, she's about the worst cop in history. I'm pretty sure half of what you learn in police academy is how to work the system and trade favors and keep your people _not in jail._

So Cam books it and Angela and Hodgins are reasonably appalled.

Back outside the wardrobe, Bones and I check out the good witches who are prone to effigy burning and naked dancing and doing things with pentagrams. They also tend to talk in this really snooty, affected way. Strangely enough, that might be the thing that makes it hardest to take them seriously.

Meanwhile, in Oz the magic is finally starting to work. Hodgins and Angela are tossing pennies into a styrofoam cup because time seems to run long here and there's no wishing well in sight. But someone's wish comes true anyway, his or hers, but probably both of theirs. They remember a cold cabin in the mountains that seemed like a good idea at the time. Now they remember it honestly for what it was: cold, dark, and barren. But also, secluded and cozy and picturesque. That's the thing about memories. Pretty crappy things might have seemed bearable when you were in love but they become beautiful when you realize you're still in love.

Gus interrupts their little moment with a look into the outside world where we're all busy analyzing hairs and interrogating spurned husbands and finding bat bones.

Things are a lot more calm in Narnia, despite the steel bars. Hodgins and Angela go in for another round of penny toss and the last wish finally gets them somewhere. That's what Dorothy learned from the ruby slippers—what happens when you wish for something you could have had all along if only you'd let yourself. She says, "Do you ever wonder what happened to us?"

They both remember every word of that conversation. It's like no time has passed at all or they've both spent the time between trying to figure out how it could go so wrong. "It was like we were playing chicken and we both swerved," Angela says. And they laugh because it took another swerve to send them to jail and jail to set them straight. Hodgins says, "We should have crashed into each other."

"At the speed of light."

So they kiss and it works. Everything's different and better except that they're still in jail. So, naturally, that's when the judge shows up to turn them loose. And ain't that how it always goes? You're not ready to leave Oz until you don't want to anymore.

Bones, Sweets, and I connect some dots that lead to the good witch, Ember. Who annoyingly insists on being called Ember. So I ask if we can all, "Step outside her magical little forest for a while." I mean, what does she think this is, a holding cell in Berryville? Then Bones and Sweets talk about circles and how everything inside is usually safe from outside forces and they talk about stab wounds and pentagrams. And all the while Clark can't get a word in edgewise to tell them the witches were all tripping on rye flour.

The witches fess up. They didn't mean any harm after all. They were just trying to contain something within a circle, trying to restore some kind of balance after all that had gone wrong.

Inside the jail cell a wedding is going on. And there's something kind of perfect about it. It doesn't matter that it's a cell or that 'Angela' is not her name. They're here and it's now. None of the rest matters. It's kind of fast and kind of surprising. But only if you're us, looking on from outside the wardrobe. Inside everything is calm and right. Everything happens on its own time which might just be the speed of light.

So that's it. That's all I've got. I don't know what happens outside of Oz or when you step out of the wardrobe. And I guess they don't either. Not yet.

I've spent the story stuck out here in the extremes. Murder and witchcraft and partnership and heartache. I've got no circle of my own where everything's calm and the world's far away and everything works out in the end. I just have a pocketful full of paper dolls and a lighter.

And I have her laugh. So maybe that's something.


End file.
